From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Aug 17 2002 - 18:00:53 MDT
Ok, I'll take on the challenge because most of the proposals
thus far don't seem to be very serious.
Side Note to Anders: I couldn't get the link you posted to work
(at least from the Javien forum archives) so I'm clueless w.r.t.
"Clausewitzian" if its discussed in that article.
Lets focus on the real problem -- WMD in the hands of people
who cannot use them responsibly. [Of course some would argue
that WMD can't be used responsibly, but thats another discussion.]
A key thing here is to divide the problem into 2 aspects.
The existence of the WMD and undesirables who use them.
If we assume that we knew about the actors involved before the
attacks we presumably would have been using everything we have,
cruise missiles, Delta force, bombings, etc. to eliminate the
situation before it became so catastrophic. So there would
have been plenty of time to think about a proper response.
You want to do two things:
a) Bring the parties responsible to justice.
b) Eliminate the chances of a repeat event.
Now, with respect to (a) bringing the parties to justice.
If you know precisely *who* the parties are and where
they live its fairly simple. You demand the government
and the people living in said city turn over so-and-so.
You inform them that if they do not, then you will
commence a normal ordinance bombing on that city
in say 2 weeks. That will allow the population to
evacuate the city. I doubt even Sadaam could keep
the entire population of Bagdahd locked up in the city.
You compensate for this disruption by dropping food,
water, emergency supplies, etc. at locations outside
the city (this is to minimize loss of life caused by
the evacuation). [This is because as we know, it isn't
"most" of the Iraqi people that we should be demanding
"justice" from -- they would be just as happy to see
Sadaam go as we would.]
I think if this were clear, the chances are fairly
high that either a coup or a civil war would break out.
If Sadaam managed to survive this event, you then give
them a second chance. You tell the people (dropping
flyers, via radio, etc.) that if they don't turn over
so-and-so, you will nuke the city. Either so-and-so
gets turned over or goes into hiding, effectively
freeing the country for an occupation force and
implementing a less foolish regime (witness Japan
and Germany), or the city gets nuked leaving the
world with the impression that (a) we did our best
to eliminate casualties among the innocents and (b)
don't mess with us. I think any other countries involved
would get the point and one would rapidly have the
responsible parties. The point of nuking a city or
two is in part to demonstrate "an eye for an eye a
tooth for a tooth" (I believe is part of the Islamic
approach to justice) and to minimize the capacity of
the country for producing additional WMD. It would
also demonstrate to the people of all countries that if
you allow irresponsible people to lead your governments,
they attacking us may cause a forfeiture of your property.
(This is kind of an inverse neutron-bomb approach --
where the bomb was supposed to leave the infrastructure
intact but eliminate the people -- instead you leave
the people alive (most of them are innocent) and
destroy the property.)
I'd probably be in favor of turning over the so-and-sos
to the World Court to be tried for crimes against humanity.
That way it isn't the U.S. running around the world being
a bully. I *might* however give strong consideration to
using extreme means, at least truth drugs, lie detector
tests, and the new NMR or PET scans that seem to be able
to detect lies to extract information from suspects.
If the evidence produced resulted in the individual being
convicted, I might be willing to go so far as to allow
torture (post conviction) to extract information related to
others involved in the conspiracy. [When single individuals kill
millions I'm reluctant to preserve "fundamental human rights"
if the means might exist to prevent it from happening again.
As Spock says -- "the lives of the many outweigh the lives
of the few or the one" (but this is just my *personal* opinion).]
Once you had the parties responsible (or even if you don't)
you also launch an attack with whatever force was
necessary to confiscate any remaining nuclear weapons in
the hands of those responsible. For now that means
presumably against Pakistan, India, or potentially Iraq.
If they use such weapons against American troops, then one
is free to use nuclear weapons against theirs. If the source
of the weapons was Russia or China, or potentially one of
our allies (or even ourselves), then you have to come
to some political solution regarding the numbers and
security of the weapons. There is still very little
clarity in my mind whether suitcase nukes exist that
are missing in Russia so I cannot judge how great
the risk might be in that area. One would hope that
the countries that have major quantities of nuclear
weapons have the trigger mechanisms designed so that
they can't easily be used if the weapons are stolen
and are designed to sufficiently destroy the uranium
or plutonium so as to make it nonusable if attempts
are made to extract it.
During this period, I think the international community
should make it clear to governments that they will take
whatever steps necessary to ensure that countries that
do not handle WMD in a responsible way will be prevented
from having the capability for making them (though this
can be very difficult in some situations). As Bush has
pointed out, Sadaam has demonstrated he cannot handle
them responsibly (by using them against the Kurds).
So if any additional evidence is demonstrated that he
has them, something must be done about that. I don't
think it should be what I've described above because
there is a great deal of difference between how proactive
and reactive aggression and violence is perceived.
You don't want to blow up oil fields. The attack alone would
build the pressure to get us alternative energy sources. The
blow the economy would suffer would mean that losing the supply
of oil would cause that much more suffering for ourselves.
If it turned out that major national governments were directly
involved, then confiscating the oil fields of those countries
until reparations is extracted from them certainly seems to
be a reasonable thing to consider.
The most likely source for at least nuclear weapons at this
time would be terrorists getting their hands on a weapon with
assistance from Pakistani Intelligence Agency/military insiders.
If that scenario were to happen there aren't any oil fields
to seize.
Robert
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